Once upon a time, it was a Mad Men world. Marketers worked by instinct, making enormous up-front investments with no clue whether campaigns would succeed or fail. Agencies grew more based on the thickness of their Rolodexes and their persuasiveness in pitch meetings than on their ability to drive clients’ bottom lines.

Today, by contrast, it’s a world of web analytics. Pay per click. The social graph. Now, marketing’s all about data—bits and bytes, ones and zeros.

Or is it?

According to scientists like Michael Gazzaniga and Michael Pinker, we’re hardwired to respond to stories. Stories tap into something deep in our minds—actually synchronizing the brain activity of storyteller and audience.